"Love Comes from God"

Romans 8:12-17, Isaiah 6:1-8 (click to display NIV text)

June 7, 2009 (Trinity Sunday)

Pastor Dwight A. Nelson

"To believe in the Trinity is to confess that God is one, and that he continually and personally makes himself known to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

"I saw the LORD seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple."

            We struggle with faith in God, in large part because we are a visual people. We want to see God.

            Your car makes a funny sound so you take it to the mechanic and try to describe the sound, and then he says "Let's take a look."

            Your ankle hurts, so you go to the doctor and say "I think I broke my ankle," and he says "Let's take a look" and maybe uses an X-ray to help him see.

            You want to buy a house and you find a description of one in the paper that sounds just perfect, and so you go take a look, and maybe your looking leads to a more formal inspection.

            To get anything fixed or accomplished or confirmed we seem to need to look at it, often with the help of technical tools. We are a visual people. So, when you are considering whether to believe in God, it is natural for us to want to take a look. We want to see God before we commit our lives to him.

            But what does God look like? We confess the Tri-Unity of God, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that this God is one. That is hard for us to visualize. If God were to come to your house, would you pull out three chairs, or one? It is confusing. We are visual people. We want to see God. But in the Bible, the experience of God does not come by seeing, but by faith. Seeing has to do with control and self-benefit and faith has to do with letting go and trusting.

            The Hebrew belief was that to see God meant you would die. But there were some exceptions to that. Some people did see God and live. The most intriguing example of that for us is Isaiah, who saw God in the temple. He says directly, "I saw the LORD." That interests us, and we want to know, "What did you see?" We would like a description, in some detail, of what Isaiah actually saw, what God looks like, and then we would like to know how that experience of seeing God blessed Isaiah, how it made him more peaceful or how he experienced inner healing.

            In looking more closely at this passage I would like to follow some of John Oswalt's insights, mixed with some thoughts of my own.

            The vision takes place in the year that King Uzziah died. Uzziah was a good and competent king. The people were nervous about what might come next. The next king, Ahaz, was not so good, and did not make such good decisions. Also, now Assyria was on the move, conquering one nation after the other. Their next king might in fact be the King of Assyria. It is at just this time that Isaiah saw the Lord as King.

            Isaiah is in the temple and he looks up and sees a throne. What is a throne doing in the temple? The King of Israel did not rule from the temple. But now Isaiah understands that the Temple is the palace of God. So Isaiah's description of this great king can only rise to the level of the hem of his robe. Isaiah lowers his eyes in great humility. He bows down. There will be no visual description of God given. Isaiah has no control over God. Rather, he kneels in awe of the great king.

            Israel is at once proud and arrogant and also frightened of Assyria. Israel needs to bow in humility before God the King.

            Around the throne are seraphim. Literally the word means "fiery ones." Fire is associated with holiness. They are holy beings. For Israel the word holy did not just mean distinct or separate. It meant righteous, loving, moral, just. Holy described the character of God. God was three times holy. The seraphim sing of God's holiness.

            Israel did not need to see God, but it needed to gain the heart of God, the morality, the love and justice of God. Israel needed to become holy in its heart. It will learn in Isaiah's prophecies that to oppress the helpless is to profane God's holy name, to act immorally sexually is to defile the holy name of God.

            Isaiah then reacts to what he has seen. "Woe to me." "I am a man of unclean lips." His vision of God leads him to a deep awareness of his own sin, and the sin of his people. He is not just saying that to be polite or to act humble. I believe his sin truly came clear to him in that moment. He also saw clearly the sin of Israel, his country.

            Before Isaiah can ask God for mercy, God extends grace. Atonement is a gift. Here a fiery coal placed on the lips, perhaps not as comforting as cool water, but a powerful experience of forgiveness and cleansing.

            Israel does not need to see God, but it needs to know the conviction of sin and experience cleansing by the grace of God. The call to holiness does not lead to law keeping, it leads to grace. God takes the initiative. God does the cleansing.

            Finally, Isaiah hears the call of God. Actually not really a call to him, but a question, "Whom shall I send?' Isaiah is willing to be sent by God, even sent into a hard task. He is not given a message of serenity to spread, but a hard word: "Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving."

            What we notice as we continue to read Isaiah is that in his faithfulness to that hard task, he begins to speak also a word of hope, a word of the Messiah; he begins to speak glorious words of salvation. We often read his words during Advent or at Christmas. No other prophet says it quite the way he does. Obedience in the hard things leads to glorious results.

            So repentant hearts everywhere need to step forward to do God's will, need to respond to the call of God.

            This is what Paul is writing about in Romans. When we come to faith in Christ, we are then led by the Holy Spirit. There is no more obligation to live by the dictates of the flesh, the way of rebellion against God. We are no longer slaves to sin. Rather, we are now adopted as children of God. In the Roman system, an adopted child was placed into a family, and at that time all his old debts were cancelled. The adopted child started fresh in the new family. He was given the full rights of sonship, he was now an heir. Yet, he brought no rights of his own into the new situation. All was given to him. In Christ we are adopted as children of God. We are able to call God "Father."

            Our need is not to see God, but to come to faith before God; to experience awe in the worship of the Holy One, to receive grace in Christ that sets us free, and to be led by the Spirit as children of God.

            Amen.